The Raven (1935)

A famous plastic surgeon who has a thing for Edgar Allen Poe, falls in love with one of his patients, whose father is a famous judge. The judge denies this love and the surgeon sends a criminal to do his dirty work as trade to fix his face.

This is the second meeting of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. I don't know what to say really about this film. It's an alright movie , but it just...it just seems that they're forcefully trying to get back the magic of the actors' first meeting except the roles are reversed. I mean, the story is ok. The story is great, it's just that it just didn't feel like enough was involved.

I think one of the problems is that the screenplay just doesn't offer anything. You got all these Poe analogies and they don't lead anywhere. Oh! You got a pit and pendulum. Oh! Scary. One of the real big problems was that you have this genius who doesn't want to get his hands dirty. He messes up this criminal's face to have him do his biding. "Not to dirty his hands". And then what happens? almost half the murder plan, the surgeon's hand is on the lever. Why even mess with the criminal? He's basically a potted plant until the end.

Even though this is something to be part of the collection, I wouldn't be that eager to buy a copy. If we were getting all the great Universal movies, this is probably the last to pick up.

2 stars